No-one getting top broadband speeds

Wednesday 28 January 2009 00:07 BST

No broadband customers are receiving the top download speeds advertised by internet service providers (ISPs), the communications watchdog has said.

More than half of broadband users are on packages that offer speeds of "up to" 8 megabits per second (Mbps), but research by Ofcom found in practice they received an average speed of 3.9 Mbps - less than half of the advertised maximum speed.

Ofcom said it was impossible for customers to receive the so-called "headline speed" of 8 Mbps, because some capacity is reserved for technical reasons.

The highest speed a customer on an 8 Mbps package could receive in practice is around 7.2 Mbps, Ofcom said, and this is only likely if they live extremely close to the telephone exchange through which their connection is routed.

Fewer than one in 10 customers on an 8 Mbps package received an average speed of more than 6 Mbps, and around one in five received an average speed of less than 2 Mbps.

The Government's Digital Britain report on the future of communications and media laid down 2 Mbps as the minimum speed that should be available to all homes in the UK by 2012.

Download speeds are affected by the technology used to deliver broadband and the capacity of the ISPs' networks, Ofcom said.

Customers who get their internet through a standard copper wire - known as a DSL connection - receive significantly slower speeds than those on cable broadband.

The report said customers on Virgin Media's "up to 10 Mbps" cable service enjoyed speeds over twice as high as "up to 8Mbps" DSL customers.

Virgin customers on this package received an average speed of between 8.1 and 8.7 Mbps, or 81-87% of the headline speed. This compares with customers on BT's "up to 8Mbps" package, who, Ofcom found, receive average speeds of between 3.8 and 4.2 Mbps, or 48 - 60% of the advertised maximum.